Posts by Keir Leslie
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Saying that suits all look the same is like saying that pop music all sounds the same. Yes, there's only three chords and you've got to keep it simple, but at the same time, it's a pretty demanding and fascinating form.
(I should note that dress sense stuff isn't really about money, it's about taste, which is way way more pernicious.)
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I think it's interesting that people say `is [he] a mean man'; the actual question is `is he a sexual offender', a rather more serious matter.
Likewise, it isn't true that this is his private life, any more than Garrett's convictions were his private life. Who Assange is having consensual sex with isn't a matter of public interest; but if he's engaging in sexual assault, I really think that is.
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No, if the people of Wigram got to choose if Phil Clearwater got in or not I would think that was also unfair.
I wouldn't make a fuss about it no, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't remain unfair.
Of course, the only reason you're defending the system is that one of your lot got in.
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Whereas I would rather have the votes of voters in Epsom count for five times more than those of everyone else than have the votes of ACT voters count for nothing. Universal unfairness is still unfair. Procedural fairness isn't. Any solution which involves restricting people's rights is a backwards step, not a forward one.
But I don't want Douglas in Parliament, and I think it's damn unfair that Epsom gets to put him there.
The prospects for a party to the left of Labour look pretty bad at the moment; the old Alliance vote's gone back to Labour in large part (or moved on to the Greens), and so's a lot of the Alliance/New Labour organisation*.
In the long run, I think there's room for a party to the left of Labour. I think the Greens are there at the moment, but if they move away from that then there's definite opportunity. Especially if the activist base of the Green party gets further alienated from the centre, which looks increasingly likely as the Green operation gets slicker and top-heavier.
* Or should I say Labour's gone back to them?
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Well, that was the wording used above.
(And also: I'm willing to call people `shit', `cock', `arsehole' and various other anatomical rude words. I don't think there's much of a reason to treat `cunt' differently from arsehole or cock, and I am rather suspicious of attempts to do so.)
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You know, I think that saying that Paul Henry is a cunt is an entirely respectable product in the marketplace of ideas. After all, he is, and given that he sells himself on his personality, it's a perfectly fair retort.
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It is of course true that this only matters at the margins, and that's the fucking point. The margin is what matters.
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Actually I could believe that bit. He's a bit of a dick, he was young, passport fraud wasn't such a thing back then as in the modern terrorism world.
Except he'd just read a novel about terrorism & dodgy passports. (What is it with right-wingers and an unhealthy obsession with Forsyth? Why do you never hear about MacLean inspired idiocy?)
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I have to say, the looting thing seems rather overblown. It's a Friday night in central Christchurch, which while not Beirut is still the kind of place you expect minor criminality. People nicking alcohol seems pretty run of the mill.
Lots of people biking around yesterday. Inner city very eerie.
PS. the Liquorland down the road was doing a brisk trade by 11 o'clock the next day. Tho' I wondered how many people just wanted to see how the glass bottles had survived.
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So you're saying that there is a parallel between the change in society attitudes towards both rape and smoking, and since it's not morally acceptable to show rape at 7:30 (or in a G movie) we therefore shouldn't show smoking?
No. That's not what I am saying. I am saying that, if you believe that for reasons of social acceptability* you shouldn't show say, rape, even when entirely historically justified, in certain kinds of film, then I don't think you can object to a similar refusal to show smoking, except on the grounds you don't think smoking's that bad, which is entirely fair and something I quite agree with, but rather different from any concern about rewriting history.
* Where `social acceptable' means the whole set of restrictions we have on showing things on television/film.